Oh no! The DM has [BLANK]! Or: What strikes fear into the hearts of players?

[Psion]

Just wondering....

What books, in your opinion, do the players dread, to the point that they shudder when they see it sitting in the DM's stack of books?

Book of Vile Darkness?
Book of Fiends?
What?

 

[Crothian]

Grimtooth's Traps.

Just having this on the table and the PCs change tactics 100%...normally they refuse to leave the bar

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I've seen one of the PCs in my group start to near cry when he caught a peak of me pulling out the Draconomicon. Of course, he didn't expect a Fang Dragon, and they had a very tough and enjoyable fight against it.

Beyond that, the PCs just seem to fear me anyway. If only for the dangerous templated Kobolds I've thrown at them for making a joke about them being so weak...

 

[2WS-Steve]

Crothian's answer sounds good to me!

For my group it was always miniatures. I had this werebear, weretiger, and snakeman miniature that I'd only pull out for my really cool -- i.e. bad news -- villains.

Bookwise it'd be Call of Cthulhu, though I think I might get Chaositech added to that list sometime. Oh, and, in my youth, Deities and Demigods (the cool printing). Gods without stats are just useless

The other bit that would get them nervous is pulling out the big dice cup...

 

[Melan]

My players are more afraid when there is nothing in front of me except empty paper and dice. When I have an adventure prepared, they can count on it being challenging but mostly survivable. Once I get into "make weird stuff up on the spot" mode, all bets are off and people start dieing.

 

[Arnwyn]

My players are so nervous and on edge that there is a lot of books that make them have conniptions. Just two sessions ago, they were pooping themselves when they saw me pull out Underdark... :\ Just last session they were groaning when they saw me get out Planescape Monstrous Compendium III (which I've entirely updated to 3e).

Seeing me with the Book of Vile Darkness would likely cause them to physically fall off their chairs.

I fear for their blood pressure.

 

[Gez]

Any rule book in English is enough to make one of my players cry.

The others are reasonnably proficient to not be too bothered, though. And me it's the poor quality of a lot of the translations that makes me cringe. But that would be a threadjack.

Overall, none of my players "dread" any book. They all know that the worse is what comes out straight of my fiendish mind.

 

[Tumbler]

My players quake when I have about 20 d6 sitting on the table. Or occassionally I'll put the Orcus miniature behind me on the shelf so it can stare at them. Freaked them out when it sat there for about ten sessions, became a joke, then I actually put it on the battle mat.

As for books, my players are most afraid of the PHB, because it means I've been focusing on special maneuvers in the Combat chapter.

 

[GlassJaw]

Tome of Horrors

I've gotten a lot of use out of that, to my player's dismay.

 

[Stormborn]

I occasionally leave CoC d20 out just to worry the players. But mainly just because I am using a variant of the spell casting system in our low magic homebrew.